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Titan/ECI Cylinder Issues

KatanaPilot

Well Known Member
Our RV-7A has a Titan/ECI IO-360 (originally O-360) with about 300 hours over four years.

During our first condition inspection, cylinders #2 & #4 had low compression - in the mid-50's. I ran the engine several times, rocked the prop and was able to get the compressions in an acceptable (but still low) range. The oil analysis came back good, so we continued to fly the airplane.

The compressions on #2 & 4 came up during the next two inspections, but were still lower than I wanted. Yes, I know, compression readings are not the be all and end all of engine condition.

However, as time went on, we were getting increased oil consumption, the oil was turning black within a few hours and we were getting oil on the belly (and we have a Christen inverted oil system).

I finally decided to bite the bullet and pull the engine. I could have just pulled the two cylinders, but if you read the whole story, you will see why it was fortuitous that I sent then engine in for IRAN. When Penn Yan disassembled the engine, they found this on cylinders #2 & #4.





There was no "smoking gun" as to the cause, but the symptoms I had been having matched the situation they found.

Last week, we reassembled the engine with new bearings, rings (nickel cylinders were ring honed) and new exhaust valves and guides (one valve had the coating delaminating). Ran the engine hard for five hours in the test cell and checked compressions again. All were low and the oil was black.

Good news was we replicated the problem. Bad news was that the cause was not obvious.

The cylinders were measured and were perfectly round (measured cold). Penn Yan thought it might be wise to heat the cylinders up and measure again. They found the smoking gun. The cylinders went 0.010" out of round at the top (where the choke is) - which allowed the rings to expand and oil to get behind them in the piston land.



So the end result is I have four defective ECI/Titan cylinders. These are all post-AD (we checked back in 2017 when we went through the engine) and pre-Continental.

Point of all of this is for any of you with post-AD/pre-CMI Titan cylinders - you may have an issue one day, or if you have these symptoms - this may be the cause.
 
Sorry to hear of this problem. I have forgotten most of my piston/ring causes and effects. It is odd that it is only the second ring. The piston crown is typically the hottest part of the piston (duh) this means that the top ring gap increases more than the second when running. Hotter pistons will use keystone rings to prevent ring sticking or increase the cold ring side gap in the groove. Rectangular rings are much more prone to sticking at some trigger temperature as oil cokes in the grooves. This is odd as the piston below the oil ring does not look like it is running hot at all. What do the underside of the pistons look like?

Pistons move from side to side in flight so this should exercise the rings in the grooves to keep them free. Rings also are designed to twist in the groove too. All the design features should match the piston, rings and bore together.

What is the manufacturer saying about this specific piston and their testing for sticking rings? Pistons, cylinders, and rings are all part of the same equation, but a .010 warp (alone) does not sound like the complete root cause. Just my faded opinion, so investigate and don't just take at face value. The manufacturer should be consulting with their piston and ring engineers to get to bottom of this with a fix. My company made 200,000 engines a year and only had a few PRL (piston ring liner ) engineers, so a small company will rely on the piston/ring suppliers. I'll be you are not alone (re failures ) here.

What ever it is , it is, you did not cause this issue, it is an engine design issue.
 
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I never disagree with the wise Mr. BillL. He always supports his statements with technical principle. however, I believe he meant quality issue versus design issue. He’ll tell me if I’m wrong.
 
Krea

Not sure if you remember coming to East TN to look at our 9A a few years ago when we were selling it. I should have kept it...

I also have a Titan in our Lancair. It's a x-340. Interesting it's the second ring, the oil control ring, that you are having issues with. I had issues with the second ring on our 340.

My oil consumption went from a quart every 5 hours or so to a quart every hour or two. Compression test showed 75+ all around. Engine was still producing good power. It had an occasional hickup transient loss of power. Strangely, when I blew into the air-oil separator I could hear an air leak from somewhere near the front of the motor, and a quarter turn of the prop would make it come and go. I still don't understand what was causing this; it wouldn't replicate when I got the plane to my mechanic.
I decided to investigate.

Still unsure of the etiology of the broken ring. I have learned there appear to be many possibilities. sudden high oil consumption is important as it was the case with my broken ring. While I don't know when the ring broke, I did see sudden high oil consumption. It changed from a quart every 5-6 hours to a quart an hour the next flight. I also had an oily plug on the #3, the cylinder with the broken ring. The compression test was 75+/80 on all cylinders in spite of the broken ring. I would suggest that a broken ring be high on ones differential diagnosis list when confronted with these symptoms. Unfortunately, the only way to know is to make the decision to pull the cylinder.
 

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Could be either.

I never disagree with the wise Mr. BillL. He always supports his statements with technical principle. however, I believe he meant quality issue versus design issue. He’ll tell me if I’m wrong.

No - I did mean design, based on the failure mode being quite consistent. But to be fair, it could be either. Todays parts are so darn consistent that it is hard to say is a deviation from a drawing. But, maybe it is very consistently wrong and therefore: quality.

Either way it should be addressed by the manufacturer.
 
Krea

Not sure if you remember coming to East TN to look at our 9A a few years ago when we were selling it. I should have kept it...

I also have a Titan in our Lancair. It's a x-340. Interesting it's the second ring, the oil control ring, that you are having issues with. I had issues with the second ring on our 340.

My oil consumption went from a quart every 5 hours or so to a quart every hour or two. Compression test showed 75+ all around. Engine was still producing good power. It had an occasional hickup transient loss of power. Strangely, when I blew into the air-oil separator I could hear an air leak from somewhere near the front of the motor, and a quarter turn of the prop would make it come and go. I still don't understand what was causing this; it wouldn't replicate when I got the plane to my mechanic.
I decided to investigate.

Still unsure of the etiology of the broken ring. I have learned there appear to be many possibilities. sudden high oil consumption is important as it was the case with my broken ring. While I don't know when the ring broke, I did see sudden high oil consumption. It changed from a quart every 5-6 hours to a quart an hour the next flight. I also had an oily plug on the #3, the cylinder with the broken ring. The compression test was 75+/80 on all cylinders in spite of the broken ring. I would suggest that a broken ring be high on ones differential diagnosis list when confronted with these symptoms. Unfortunately, the only way to know is to make the decision to pull the cylinder.

Lots of potential causes but an out-of-round cylinder (wall) will create stress cycles on the rings -> possible fatigue failure of the ring parent material. Would be interesting to examine the fracture (specifically crack initiation) surface. At least we’d know the failure mechanism.

Air cooled cylinders present a more unique challenge than their liquid cooled counterparts. There’s a relatively significant ant amount of barrel choke. There’s only one operating CH temp where the cylinder walls are truly straight; not an easy target for an aircraft engine’s environmental operating envelope. This makes it more intrinsically intolerant of design, quality, whatever, issues.
 
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Thanks for the follow up

What do the underside of the pistons look like?

What is the manufacturer saying about this specific piston and their testing for sticking rings? I'll be you are not alone (re failures ) here.

What ever it is , it is, you did not cause this issue, it is an engine design issue.

I was not there for the second teardown and investigation that followed. I do know that a Lycoming cylinder that had been nickel plated (and therefore honed after plating) did not exhibit the out-of-round condition at the top of the barrel when heated at the same time as my Titan/ECI cylinders. We are going to install 4 of these cylinders to replace the defective Titan/ECI cylinders.

The pistons and the cylinder walls (along with the entire engine, save the stuck rings) were pristine on teardown.

Krea

Not sure if you remember coming to East TN to look at our 9A a few years ago when we were selling it. I should have kept it...

I also have a Titan in our Lancair. It's a x-340. Interesting it's the second ring, the oil control ring, that you are having issues with. I had issues with the second ring on our 340.

I would suggest that a broken ring be high on ones differential diagnosis list when confronted with these symptoms. Unfortunately, the only way to know is to make the decision to pull the cylinder.

Yes I do remember. Sorry you had issues, as well. Most of our compression readings were quite normal on the last condition inspection - but the other symptoms were causing me concern.

No - I did mean design, based on the failure mode being quite consistent. But to be fair, it could be either. Todays parts are so darn consistent that it is hard to say is a deviation from a drawing. But, maybe it is very consistently wrong and therefore: quality.

Either way it should be addressed by the manufacturer.

The issue with any manufacturer involvement is that Titan/ECI no longer exists and CMI has reportedly absolved themselves of any responsibility of Titan components. Apparently, CMI has not shipped any of the Titan nickel cylinders like these for quite some time - so it makes me wonder if they found issues in the manufacturing process for these cylinders (TISN12.0SA in case you were wondering).
 
Yes. The ECI Titan cylinder manufacturer is no longer in business. Any parts they made have therefore been orphaned with no support. Continental Titan has no business connection with the original ECI Titan company or any of it's parts. You might think they would be guilty by association, even if they only continued on with the "Titan" moniker after buying the assets of the prior company. They bought the assets, not the liability.

I am not defending Continental here. Just repeating what they told me.

I too had a complete set of ECI Titan cylinders fail at less than 200 hours due to the notorious nickel coating delaminating issues. With resulting piston/cylinder scraping as shown in the above post. Due to an FAA AD not allowing further use of the cylinders ECI provided exchange cylinders to type certificated aircraft as part of the AD but the equivalent parts installed in experimental aircraft were not afforded the same warranty. ECI would take the cylinders the FAA said were to be scrapped and rework them for the experimental airframes. Even though they cost the same to all customers initially. Those reworked cylinders have proven to be just as troublesome as they were prior to the AD. ECI pulled a dirty on experimental aircraft owners.

When all heck broke loose in my Titan engine I talked to the new Continental Titan factory and they provided zero help with the disassociation with ECI as mentioned above. However, Continental could have had a customer service coup by throwing owner like me some little bone. Like a 5% discount or something. But nothing. I just wanted to talk to somebody I figured knew what direction to take. In fact they acted like my one phone call was a nuisance and I was wasting their valuable time. Compare that to the likes of Superior stepping up and doing the right thing by buying back IO-390s outright from customers due to problems.

As a result of the problematical Titan nickel coating issues I went with Superior thru-hardened steel cylinders combined with a Barrett Precision TDI/IRAN overhaul. It has been a perfect engine and I am very happy with the result.

Had I known what I know now, when I originally bought my aircraft I would have pulled all 4 ECI cylinders off the engine and installed new Superiors. It would have probably saved my having to tear down the engine with associated costs and down time. Instead I flew around in an "ignorance is bliss" mode. It could have been my butt, too. When stuff started happening I started researching ECI Titan cylinders but it was too late.
 
I was not there for the second teardown and investigation that followed. I do know that a Lycoming cylinder that had been nickel plated (and therefore honed after plating) did not exhibit the out-of-round condition at the top of the barrel when heated at the same time as my Titan/ECI cylinders. We are going to install 4 of these cylinders to replace the defective Titan/ECI cylinders.

Assuming I'm reading this correctly, the ECI and Lycoming legacy jugs are not exactly roll-in, roll-out replacements. I'm currently modifying my baffles for the Titan tapered cylinders. Not a big deal but it does take time.
 

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My ECI Titan IO-360 did not use the tapered cylinders. It is effectively a Lycoming clone. Different animal from the 370.
 
My ECI Titan IO-360 did not use the tapered cylinders. It is effectively a Lycoming clone. Different animal from the 370.

Unless I completely assumed incorrectly (not the first time here), the extra displacement is from the stroke alone. No changes to the bore; therefore cylinder. Anything relatively recent from Titan, I'd expect tapered fins. Regardless, verification is needed unless you like surprises.
 
Unless I completely assumed incorrectly (not the first time here), the extra displacement is from the stroke alone. No changes to the bore; therefore cylinder. Anything relatively recent from Titan, I'd expect tapered fins. Regardless, verification is needed unless you like surprises.

My fins were not tapered. They were exactly like Lycoming factory. Otherwise the direct swap out to Superiors would have required baffle modification, which it didn't. Remember ECI was marking their parts as interchangeable parts for certified aircraft. The engine was an IO-361-A1A kit engine from ECI. The taper finned cylinders either came later, were directed at non-certified engines or both. ECI would sell the unassembled kit engine for either the builder or to a shop to put together. Mine was assembled by Americas Aircraft Engines in Collinsville, Oklahoma. They would buy batches of these kit engines and marketed the assembled engines under what they called their "Eagle IV EXperimental" engine. 180 hp at 2700 RPM. This engine is what had the crappy ECI cylinders with bad nickel coating. I don't know if the cylinder AD was applicable to later taper-fined cylinders or not. I went by serial number table in the AD and rework yellow tags to determine what happed with my engine.
First photo below of original cylinder assemblies. Second photo was after coming back from Barrett with Superiors.
 

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Assuming I'm reading this correctly, the ECI and Lycoming legacy jugs are not exactly roll-in, roll-out replacements. I'm currently modifying my baffles for the Titan tapered cylinders. Not a big deal but it does take time.

I don't have the tapered fin cylinders, so my hope is the existing baffles will fit the Lycoming cylinders without modification. Should know next week when the engine arrives from Penn Yan.
 
I don't have the tapered fin cylinders, so my hope is the existing baffles will fit the Lycoming cylinders without modification. Should know next week when the engine arrives from Penn Yan.

Recently replaced my non tapered O 320 ECI cylinders (delaminating rings) with Lycoming cylinders and everything including baffles fitted perfectly.

Fin 9A
Australia.
 
I don't have the tapered fin cylinders, so my hope is the existing baffles will fit the Lycoming cylinders without modification. Should know next week when the engine arrives from Penn Yan.

That's exactly what I did. ECI to Superior both non-tapered. So your Lycoming cylinders will fit the baffles just fine without modification.
 
Just as a point of reference, my original engine was from ECI, I ran it for around 500 hrs before the AD came out, ECI replaced all my cylinders with new ones (almost free) and I ran those on the engine without fault for another 1000 hrs before I installed the 370.
I have friends and customers with ECI cylinders that are still running fine.
So, like every manufacturer out there, they had some issues but generally gave good support.
 
So this thread has made me nervous.

Like the poster in #13, I have an ECI Titan motor from America's Aircraft Engines.

I am trying to figure out if this A/D is applicable, because my motor was built in November of 2007.

Right in the beginning of the A/D, it says, "If your engine has not been overhauled, or not had any cylinder assemblies replaced since new, no further action is required."

I know that my engine has NOT been overhauled or had cylinders replaced since it was new. Am I overthinking this, since I know I have ECI nickel cylinders from the years this was a problem?
 
ECI would take the cylinders the FAA said were to be scrapped and rework them for the experimental airframes. Even though they cost the same to all customers initially. Those reworked cylinders have proven to be just as troublesome as they were prior to the AD. ECI pulled a dirty on experimental aircraft owners.

Are you saying that ECI/Titan reworked AD cylinders and then sold them as new in the experimental engine kits at some point? Or were these cylinders marketed to experimental owners as overhauled?
 
The piston crown is typically the hottest part of the piston (duh) this means that the top ring gap increases more than the second when running.

Could you elaborate on this for me? I have always been under the impression that the hotter the piston gets, the tighter/smaller the compression ring gap will become. Every tech sheet that I have seen from piston / ring manufacturers has large print warnings with a chart showing recommended ring gaps for normally aspirated and various different boost levels and nitrous shots. Greater boost (i.e. more heat) always came with larger gaps to keep from breaking lands as the gaps shrunk during running.

Larry
 
That one stumped me too. I assumed he meant decreased gap with heat. I would like to understand if I was wrong all these years.
 
So this thread has made me nervous.

Like the poster in #13, I have an ECI Titan motor from America's Aircraft Engines.

I am trying to figure out if this A/D is applicable, because my motor was built in November of 2007.

Right in the beginning of the A/D, it says, "If your engine has not been overhauled, or not had any cylinder assemblies replaced since new, no further action is required."

I know that my engine has NOT been overhauled or had cylinders replaced since it was new. Am I overthinking this, since I know I have ECI nickel cylinders from the years this was a problem?

Bit confusing but I think the statement assumes a new genuine Lycoming engine with genuine Lycoming cylinders. Regardless you need to check if your individual ECI cylinder serial numbers are listed in the AD. (AD 2009-26-12)

I had group A cylinders that were OK till about 1,100 hrs when the rings were found to be delaminating (ECI S.I. No 06-6)

Fin 9A.
 
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